Comparative Cultures of Care:
An Interdisciplinary Project
Work Package 1
Theorizing Care:
A Humanities Online Reading Course
In his 1910 report to the Carnegie Foundation, education expert Abraham Flexner wrote, “Science and humanism form a circle, in which the lifeblood of humanity flows and intermingles.” Therefore, a holistic and interdisciplinary foundation is needed for a project of this nature and scale. Various meanings, conceptual vocabularies, and philosophical debates of care will need to be clarified through a free global online course, workshops, and invited talks, in order to build a solid intellectual base.
In this project, we are more interested in the situated philosophies, emphasizing the cultural theories of care as framed by questions of education disparity, climate change, gender and racial differences, and the ambiguous role of technology. We propose 3 important sub-themes through which care is theorized. They are identified because of their close orientation to humanities education:
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“Green creativity” in film and digital culture
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Figurations of the “care agents” in artistic and literary expressions
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Critical theory of care in educational contexts
We have obtained enthusiastic agreement from scholars from the US, UK, Canada, HK and the Mainland to participate in this project as Co-supervisors whose roles will be planners of conferences, speakers in workshops and global online courses, and possible partners in the future international consortium. They are from various disciplines with different angles to the question of care, including film studies, peace education, environmental art, ecocriticism, sociology, etc.
Focus
A free monthly global online course centering on different discussions about ‘comparative cultures of care’ from February to August in 2023. Each session is led by a reading group leader who provides the common reading(s).
Each reading will be supplemented by a brief summary and a set of thought-provoking guiding questions. A critical annotation for the work being discussed will follow after each session and will be posted on our website for common access.
Feb
|
Sep
2023
On November 2-3, 2023, after the online course is completed, a face-to-face international conference will be hosted at the Education University of Hong Kong. Participants of this
Reading Course are welcome to attend the conference.
More details will be provided in the second half of 2023.
2-3
November,
2023
2023
Events
Past Event
Initial
Readings
Participants are encouraged to approach this course initially with two fundamental readings:
Chatzidakis, A., Hakim, J., Litter, J., & Rottenberg, C. (2020). Chapter 1. Caring Politics, Chapter 2. Caring Kinships, Chapter 3. Caring Communities. In The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence. New York: Verso Books.
Groys, B. (2022). Introduction: Care and Self-Care, Chapter 9. Care as Being the Dasein, Chapter 10. Under the Gaze of the Charwoman. In Philosophy of Care. New York: Verso Books.
"The Banality of Carelessness and the Prefiguration of a Caring Society"
- A Summary Review by Jose Duke Bagulaya with support from Eric Feng
"Care in the Biopolitical Age: Towards a Philosophy of Care"
- A Summary Review by Jose Duke Bagulaya with support from Eric Feng
(*The proposed readings will be provided after registration)
Class & Reading
Schedule
Session Leader:
Ellen Seiter
01
Kwok, E. (2019). Little Manila: An Unlikely Crowd of Resistance in Hong Kong. Architectural Theory Review, 23(2), 287-314.
02
Patel, R., & Moore, J. W. (2017). Cheap Care. In A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. University of California Press.
03
Seiter, E. (1995). Children's Desires/Mothers' Dilemmas The Social Contexts of Consumption. In Sold Separately: Children and Parents in Consumer Culture. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
9 Feb 2023
Thur, 4-6pm (HKT)
Session Leader: Ellen Seiter
9 Mar 2023
Thur, 4-6pm (HKT)
Session Leader: CHOW Yiu Fai
Session Leader:
Yiu Fai Chow
Chow, Y. (2018). Living on My Own, Creatively, Precariously. In Caring in Times of Precarity: A Study of Single Women Doing Creative Work in Shanghai (pp. 1-50). Germany: Springer.
Reading Session Leaders
(in Alphabetical Order)
![Dr Bidisha Banerjee[1]_edited.jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/c8ec6f_ce9c45d560c744019cb763cd050aeddb~mv2.jpg/v1/crop/x_0,y_10,w_280,h_356/fill/w_209,h_266,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_auto/Dr%20Bidisha%20Banerjee%5B1%5D_edited.jpg)
Reading
CARE
